Capitalism sustains legitimacy through broken promises, not fulfilled ones

Evidence

That is, the speculative imagination intervenes in how faith and promises are linked together in finance capitalism. In doing so, it renews capitalism’s legitimacy through the vehicle of the “broken” rather than the “redemptive” promise. In the long run, we will all be dead, as Keynes’s celebrated dictum goes, but speculation emerges as an answer to the contingencies of human existence in the here and now. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 118

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The broken-promise thesis is genuinely counterintuitive: legitimacy doesn’t come from keeping promises but precisely from speculating on ones that will fail—worth sitting with.
• SEED: Angle for an essay: legitimacy-by-broken-promise as a general theory of political institutions, not just markets.
• XREF: connects to: Capitalist social failures are actually successes for capital’s own logic — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 381; Power cannot self-realize but depends on societal-structural conditions for legitimacy; Social reforms can backfire by raising expectations beyond what capitalism can deliver — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 320 (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Capitalist social failures are actually successes for capital’s own logic #corroborates (0.85) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 381
• Social reforms can backfire by raising expectations beyond what capitalism can deliver #corroborates (0.82) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 320
• Power cannot self-realize but depends on societal-structural conditions for legitimacy #expands (0.80)
• Technological progress legitimates capitalism as the best possible system #contradicts (0.80) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 122
• Crises of ruling legitimacy produce misread progress claims and mass empowerment #complicates (0.75)